


Confrontation

by Kevin1122



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crack, Dogs, Fluff, Hannibal is a Cannibal, M/M, Misunderstandings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-24
Updated: 2015-12-24
Packaged: 2018-05-09 02:24:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5521985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kevin1122/pseuds/Kevin1122
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will Graham is mad. Hannibal Lecter doesn't quite understand why. Couple counselling ensues.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Confrontation

**Author's Note:**

> This is my entry for the Hannigram Holiday Exchange. Merry christmas and happy holidays, I hope you enjoy reading this fanfic! :)

"Please tell me you're kidding me right now."

"I am not, Will. I would do it for you. My money for your happiness, for seeing your smile radiating in the essence of my very existence again."

"Don't do this."

"What?"

"Hannibal, don't."

"Please elaborate."

"How on earth can you not comprehend the imbecile impropriety of your statement? It was just uncalled for. I don't want a new one. I want this one. And I want her healthy," Will Graham shouted, folding his hands behind the head in disbelief. 

He walked restlessly through the modern, roomy kitchen of their house, hardly able to control his emotions. His frowned eyebrows angrily faced towards his nose, the corner of his mouth was twitching in wrath and desperation. Next to him, a well-clad Hannibal in a brown, checkered suit with an ornated tie full of delicate curved patterns slightly lowered his chin. He failed to understand what was truly happening at that moment He looked at Will, but there was no radiating smile. Will was indeed furious. And Hannibal was confused.

"My offer was intended to evoke a positive reaction."

Will smirked sarcastically. 

"Thanks, Hannibal, thanks for saying you'll buy me a new one. It doesn't work like that. She's ill and I don't want a new one from you. Keeping a dog is a great commitment, you can't just get rid of them when they're sick. She needs treatment and not your superficial verbiage!"

A gentle whimper arose from a blanket-filled basket on the floor. 

"It's okay, Clarice. Hannibal is just showing his insensitive, arrogant side again", Will whispered while reaching out to the weakened brown dog in the basket. Clarice looked at him with sad, big eyes. She had trouble breathing and yellow fluid was dripping out of her nose every few minutes. 

Facing Hannibal again, he said, "I can't live like that anymore. You're just mocking me and my dogs. You know perfectly well how important they are to me, and if one is sick, then I have the responsibility to take care of them, because nobody else would. You certainly wouldn't."

Hannibal slowly opened his mouth, but closed it again with a slight click of his tongue. He was offended. However looking at the frowned and disappointed look that Will had on also made him unable to get angry about his accusations. "I think you are overreacting, Will," he said with a calm but not very secure voice. 

Will was about to put some dog food into a bowl for Clarice and froze when he heard Hannibals words.

 

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"He's insane! It's making me sick. He doesn't care about my needs. He's a sociopath, please help me."

"You woke me from my daily regeneration measure," a tired, absent voice replied. 

"Regene- What?! Bedelia, were you sleeping? It's 5 pm."

"Salvation from earthly realms does not answer to the clock. It speaks to you when it is convinced of its righteousness."

"Bedelia, are you high?"

"No. I am wide awake," Bedelia du Maurier said lazily. Will wasn't so sure, as he believed he heard her yawning a few seconds later. 

"I didn't ask that. Anyway, I really need your help. We need your help. It can't go on like this because Hannibal doesn't understand my dogs!"

"Do you understand your dogs?"

"Of course... I guess I do?"

"I'm afraid I can't help you. I must regenerate more. One must respect the needs of the mind, or the mind will show disrespect to the body. And the body is the shell that carries the universe of each and all of us."

"Yeah, I get it. Thanks for nothing!" Will smashed the phone onto the black living room table. 

They are all insane, he thought with gritted teeth.

With a desperate howl Will immediately picked up the phone again and pressed the redial button. It took eight beeps until Bedelia accepted the call.

"Yes?" she quietly whispered into the speaker.

"Please! I really cannot deal with this problem alone. You are the only one who understands me and who can help. You have to be our... couple counselor." Will felt terrible.

"It is in the middle of the afternoon. Please call me at more appropriate times. The night sounds appropriate to my understanding of existence. But for this matter... Will, only you can help yourself. How deep do you think your inner bond with Hannibal is?"

"Um... very deep, I guess."

"Hannibal has the talent of creating excruciatingly deep bonds, or dependencies, whose substance revolves around him like planets orbit around the sun. That is what makes him... delightful to have him around oneself. Or to be around him, to be more precise. But if you try to change this attraction that he afflicts to his surroundings, your efforts shall be in vain. Do you think you can change the sun, Will?"

"God, no, I just want to be understood and respected by him. Will you help us?"

"Oh, there is nothing I would love more, but I am afraid the needs of my mind and body are calling now. Goodbye, Will."

With an exhausted sigh, Will let himself fall into an 18th century brown, cozy armchair. He was rubbing his tired eyes with his hands. The stress was just too much for him. Sitting there with half closed eyes he saw a silhouette entering the room.

"Who did you call?" Hannibal asked.

"Bedelia. Thought she'd help, but she was too busy with herself. Or with whatever," he replied and made a discarding gesture with his hand. 

Hannibal remained silent and looked at the clock at the other side of the room. Will noticed. 

"The vet will close soon. I'll go and take Clarice there."

With a slight groan he stood up from the comfortable armchair, put on his shoes and a grey cargo jacket and fetched the basket including his ill dog. Without a further word Will had left the house.

Will drove too fast and almost slided in a hard curve on the icy road. He tried to calm his breath. He wouldn't do Clarice a favor if he killed both of them on the road. After a twenty minutes ride he finally reached the veterinarian office. It was a neat, small house just in front of a little forest. Its wooden roof was covered in snow, making it look a bit like a house from a fairy tail. Will opened the door and stepped out of the car, carrying the basket in his arm. He shuddered a bit from the sudden temperature drop. Clarice was snuggled in a blanket and shyly looked at the entrance shield. Emma Moon & Gregory Sallway – Veterinary Clinic and animal vaccination. Will took a few more worried breaths and entered the house.

"Hi there, sweetheart."

A blonde enthusiastic woman quickly approached Will. She was wearing green surgery clothing with deer antlers in her hair as big as her wide smile. Her eyes were blue, warm and kind. 

"Erm... Hey," Will replied, a bit bewildered by the unfamiliar salutation. 

"Good afternoon, mister, how can I help you?" Suddenly he realized that the target of her gushy greeting was Clarice. 

"My... dog Clarice is ill, probably caught some infection. She has trouble breathing and is generally weak. She hardly eats and there's a lot of snot coming from her nose."

"Oh no, I'm sorry." For a split-second her expression turned from the initial excitement to compassionate regret, but instantly switched to radiating, confident optimism. 

"Please follow me with Clarice." 

After Will had brought his pet into the examination and surgery room, Emma Moon quickly performed a physical examination and prescribed antibiotics as well as some high-calory cost that Will had to feed Clarice twice every day. She diagnosed a nasopharyngeal infection and a mild bronchitis. Clarice endured the scary situation bravely but seemed even more exhausted after Will stored her back in her comfortable transport basket. He stroked her head and headed towards the front door. 

"Also make sure she drinks enough. If she doesn't improve in the next three day, bring her back here."

"Okay, thank you."

"And don't worry too much, she will be alright," Moon smiled.

Will was glad he went to the vet. He was a bit calmer and managed to deal with his initial panic when he saw Clarice feeling sick. When he returned home, he closed the door and put his jacket into the wardrobe. After placing Clarice's basket back where it belonged he went into the kitchen to pour a glass of water. He hadn't drunk anything the whole day. He could hear Hannibal's imaginary voice in his head. It is of utmost importance for your health to have a steady influx of fluids. Make sure that you never dehydrate, or complications such as hypotension, fatigue, desorientation, electrolyte disorders, cramps, kidney stones and delirium may occur.

Contemplating Hannibal and their dispute earlier that day made him wonder where he was. With the glass in his hand, Will walked to the corridor leading towards the living room. The door was closed, which was unusual. He slowly approached and placed his fingers on the handle. When he opened the door and looked at the scene in front of him, the glass dropped to the floor and shattered into a thousand pieces.

 

"What the..." 

"Good evening, Will," Hannibal replied courteously, with a friendly nod. "How was your visit at the veterinarian's office?"

"What's going on here? Why is she here?" Will pointed at the third person in the room, sitting on a chair in front of the dining table. 

"Hello, Will. I do suppose that you will not have to wait until tonight anymore. I would offer you my hand, but I am tied to the chair, I'm afraid," Bedelia said calmly with a slight smirk, giving Hannibal a meaningful glance. 

Looking closer at the blonde, elegant woman, Will could see that she was unable to move her hands and legs. Earlier, Will hadn't imagined that this day could become even more confusing.

"Hannibal... What did you do?" He asked with a silent, hoarse voice.

"After spending a fair amount of time contemplating over our dispute earlier today and witnessing your frustration that our guest did not feel ready to help you in your endeavour of sorting out your differences with me, I figured that it would be the most efficient and easiest way to bring her right here for you. Et voila. Here she is." 

Will observed Hannibal's suggested bow and inviting gesture towards Bedelia. 

"Did you just kidnap Bedelia?" He didn't know what to think. He was flooded with contrary emotions. One the one hand he was furious, because it was just wrong to abduct a person against their will. It was egoistic to consider the own needs higher than the needs of other persons. And it was truly outrageous that Hannibal didn't even communicate any of this to Will. He'd never get used to Hannibal's method of solving problems. Hannibal had shown him on countless occasions that he adamantly followed his own moral system far away from the legislative codex that society more or less agreed on living by. But he couldn't get used to it. At least not yet. 

On the other hand...Will had asked for Bedelia's help. With her help he could maybe bring more clarity and mutual understanding into his relationship with Hannibal. And wasn't that the most precious thing that he could imagine? Being one step closer to living in perfect harmony with the man that he was so intrigued and attracted by? With the man he wanted to live with? She was there at that moment, sitting in the very room where he was standing, unable to move, still close to the door with shards of broken glass lying next to him on the floor. But it was wrong. He couldn't accept that. At least not yet.

"I want you to take her back home," he said quietly, but with certainty. 

For the second time of that day, Hannibal showed that bewildered expression of not being appreciated for his effort that he did for Will. 

"You keep refusing the efforts that I do solely for you, Will. I wonder if your behaviour is directed personally to me, or if you are having a generally instable phase."

"Just because I called Bedelia du Maurier and asked her for advice on how to live in more harmony together doesn't mean that, as soon as I leave the house, you have to overreact and kidnap her."

"Why not?"

"It's not right"

"What is not right about it?"

"It just... isn't. See, Bedelia, that's what I'm talking about. He just doesn't understand me," Will said with a helpless gesture towards the captivated psychiatrist. 

Bedelia closed her eyes for a moment and exhaled. 

"Let's just quickly solve this and get it done. I am tired."

Hannibal look at Will with a satisfied smile.

"There you have it, she is willing to cooperate. Let us start, shall we?"

He released the ropes that he used for tying Bedelia up, quickly disappeared in the kitchen and served an expensive looking bottle of wine. 

"Chateau d’Yquem, 1973," Hannibal declared not without pride. 

Bedelia nodded approvingly and pointed to the empty chair next to Will.

"Sit down, please." She took a sip from the luxurious wine and briefly sighed in enjoyment.

"I assume I was summoned here because there are certain tensions between the two of you?"

Still flooded by the absurdity of the situation, Will slowly replied: "Yes."

Bedelia raised her eyebrows, amused by Will's sudden uncertainty.

"Well, not only is it embarassing that Hannibal kidnaps acqaintances of mine without telling me a word, but also I have the feeling he never listens to me. He has his own opinion and forces it upon mine. Clarice, one of my dogs, is ill, and all Hannibal did was shrugging and telling me he will buy me a new one."

Hannibal looked away, and Will thought he had seen a tiny glimpse of shame in his expression. 

Bedelia nodded sympathetically and turned to Hannibal. 

"How did you experience this matter, Hannibal?"

"It might be applicable to state that I was not fully aware of the emotional connection between Will and his dogs." With a twitch of his mouth he quietly added: "Also I may have experienced a slight shiver of jealousy seeing his affection and attention Will grants these creatures."

Will almost choked on his Chateau d'Yquem from 1973. 

"You were jealous?"

Hannibal looked down. 

"Maybe."

"Oh god, Hannibal, you're not competing with my dogs. You're a human being, the most precious human being to me."

Hannibal didn't say anything. It was apparent that the situation was beyond uncomfortable for him.

Bedelia waited a few seconds, cleared her throat and continued moderating the counselling. 

"To sum the circumstances up, we have Will who is anxious and maybe overly displaying his concern for the morbid canine creatu...-"

"Don't call her morbid canine creature," Will interfered harshly.

"Forgive me. And also we have Hannibal who feels neglected from the care and appreciation of his dearest partner in crime. Can both of you accept the formulation of this statement?

Both men insecurely looked at each other and nodded after a short pause. 

"Both of your behaviours show pathological features from a psychiatric perspective. Will, do you have such strong connections to your canine...dogs, because you find it difficult to connect to and maintain a healthy connection with the emotional complexity of another human being?" "

Will's face turned into a grimace of displeasure, offended that he had been unmasked. 

"Yeah, I suppose."

Hannibal watched him with affection. He felt bad for seeing his dear Will Graham struggling. 

"And Hannibal," she said with a curious glance towards him, "is there any chance that you are afraid of dogs?"

"No." 

Hannibal's voice sounded different, with a slightly higher pitch. Also the answer came a few milliseconds too fast.

"Are you sure?" Bedelia added.

"Yes."

Will observed Hannibal and softly said: "Hannibal... It's okay. You can tell us."

He had never seen Hannibal so helpless and defensive. He was sitting on his chair in his own living room, but it was obvious that his only wish was to just disappear. Tiny drops of sweat started accumulating on his forehead. There was no intellectual wit left in him.

"I... got bitten by a stray dog on the streets in Lithuania, when I was eight years old," Hannibal slowly began to tell.

"Back then I tried to approach it open-mindedly, but it just did not understand my good intentions. It attacked my leg, and even though the wound was not threatening, something in my soul kept memorizing this event and disattached me from these animals. And it disattached me from yours, too."

Will's anger started to vanish. He never knew that Hannibal was a victim of traumatic events related to dogs in his childhood, and he was impressed how well he had managed to hide it for so many years and shrug it off as a mere dislike for dogs, rather than a fear of them.

 

"Hannibal," Will said and laid an arm around his shoulder, "these dogs are peaceful creatures. The dog that bit you was most likely scared and didn't mean to hurt you because of evil intentions."

Hannibal nodded shyly. 

Bedelia finished her glass with a big mouthful and stated: "Apparently we have a post-traumatic phobia directed to the species of dogs. You do know how these kinds of psychological disorders are treated best, right?"

Hannibal swallowed. 

"Yes."

"How?" Will asked.

"Confrontation," the other two replied simultaneously.

Will chuckled. That evening turned out better than he had initially expected. 

"So all we have to do is put a dog on his lap and he will be fine?"

"That is a possible outcome, yes," Bedelia replied. 

Will's smile widened. 

"Will you do it, Hannibal? It might be the key to our current problems."

Hannibal hesitated, but after some contemplation he agreed.

"I do have one condition. Give me a few moments."

He finished his glass and left the room. Will leaned back in his chair. He was happy that Hannibal was willing to improve himself as a person in order to improve their relationship. He had feared that it was always Will who had to try to get onto Hannibal's level, but this matter showed that Hannibal was far from being perfect, either. And it was soothing to know that. 

"Thank you, Bedelia."

"Oh it's not like I had a choice", she replied with drowsiness in her voice.

"Well, that's right..."

Will heard steps from the hallway behind them, knowing that Hannibal would finally return to overcome his fear of dogs. He went to Clarice and fetched her from her basket. 

"Hey, Clarice, I hope it's okay if I put you on Hannibal's lap when he comes back from whatever he is doing right now."

"Let us begin," Hannibal said upon entering the room. 

"Oh wow, are you being serious?" Will puffed and had to laugh. Bedelia also wore quite a big smile on her face. 

"I said only under one condition," Hannibal replied. He was fully clad in a transparent bag-like plastic uniform leaving only his hands and head exposed and sat down on his chair. His hands were covered in latex gloves. 

"You insist on wearing your murder suit for petting a dog?"

"Yes."

""As ridiculous as you may be, I'll accept your condition. Are you ready?"

"No, I am not, but I will not ever be more ready for it than now."

"Okay, here we go," Will said and carefully placed Clarice onto Hannibals lap. He couldn't clearly hear who of the two whimpered, but one of them did 

"Hello there," Hannibal said with a trembling voice. Clarice observed him with big eyes and nudged him with her nose. 

"And now he has to keep her for a couple of hours or how does it work?" Will asked Bedelia.

"He has to keep her until the panic overruns him, or his fear of dogs is gone."

Will moved closer to Hannibal and laid an arm around him.

"We have all the time we need," he whispered to his beloved. "Well, unless panic will overrun you..."

"Indeed. What an extraordinary day this is," Hannibal replied.

Will nodded and added: "Yes. It is one of these days."

He laid his head on Hannibal's shoulder and though being covered in plastic, it felt warm and comforting. Bedelia filled another glass of wine and emptied it alarmingly fast before announcing that she'd leave, as she considered her job to be fulfilled. Will thanked her and apologized for the inconvenience, while Hannibal finally seemed able to slightly relax, stroking Clarice with his latex gloves. He saw Hannibal smile and closed his eyes, snuggled against his lover. Hannibal leaned back in his chair and did the same. Soon, all three of them fell asleep and left the tension and unease of the previous day far behind them.


End file.
